I was getting tired of running Ubuntu on a virtual machine so I decided to dual boot my PC. I picked Ubuntu 12.04 LTS because that would have better support for hardware, I was concerned whether my graphics card would not work properly. Here are my system specs:

1) BIOS/UEFI: I had heard of UEFI before but I didn’t know what it was. Anyways, my first mistake was trying to install Ubuntu in UEFI mode when my Windows 7 was in BIOS mode. Follow this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI to see if your Windows is in UEFI or BIOS mode. Once I changed my BIOS settings to boot only in BIOS mode, things started working as expected.

2) Partitioning: I don’t know why I got this wrong so many times, anyways, when installing Ubuntu, partition it yourself:

Make sure you select /boot partition correctly in the bootloader dropdown.

3) Graphics Card: Long story short, install the drivers suggested by Ubuntu through the additional drivers window. Ignore the fact that it still says “Unknown” graphics in the System Details window. If you have dual screens like me and want an extended desktop, the Ubuntu Displays menu didn’t allow it so use Catalyst Control Center to do it (gksudo amdcccle). I think I also read somewhere that it also helped that I ran Ubuntu in BIOS mode and UEFI mode.

So I ended doing the whole thing about 10 times, yes yes I know I’m such a n00b but but but it works now 🙂